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Punjab to emulate Indian model of agri
marketing
MULTAN (April 12 2004): Punjab would emulate
Indian Punjab model of agriculture marketing to
enhance the level of protection to farmers
cultivating cash crops in times of domestic market
crises, said provincial minister for Agriculture
Marketing Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon on Sunday.
"Agriculture marketing system of Indian Punjab was
an ideal one but its implementation may take few
months subject to law-making at home", Qasim Noon
told newsmen in a 'meet the press' programme at
Multan Press Club.
A delegation headed by the provincial minister for
agriculture marketing would leave for India this
month to study the agriculture marketing system in
Indian Punjab where it would visit markets besides
universities at Ludhiana and Hariana and
agriculture institutes at Mumbai and Dehli.
"Amidst exchanges in other fields between both the
countries, it is our desire that we should learn
from them where they are good and to give them
something in such fields in which we can be
helpful to them", Qasim Noon said. Recommendations
would be prepared after completion of delegation's
visit to India and then the matter would be put up
before the House for approval, he added.
To a question, he said, Indian Punjab model should
be implemented in full as in his point of view the
same was an ideal mechanism in terms of giving
protection to farmers in case the market of cash
crops crashes.
He also mentioned the recent visit of chairman
Market Board Indian Punjab to Pakistan.
Elaborating practice in Indian Punjab, Qasim Noon
said, whenever domestic market of any cash crop
crashes, the market committees there store the
farmers' produce in their warehouses and in return
give them vouchers which farmers can use to obtain
soft-term loans from banks.
They can obtain loan worth 80 percent of the
voucher value and thus face no problem in sowing
and applying inputs for the new crop, he
maintained. Market committees pay back the bank
loans when the domestic market returns to normal
or experiences a boom.
Things would improve for farmers after
implementation of this system, hoped Rana Qasim
Noon.
He lauded chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi for
solving the potato growers' problem, that stemmed
out of recent price crisis, by exporting 250,000
tons of potato by offering subsidy of 25 percent
in freight to exporters.
Courtesy Business Recorder
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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